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Hundreds Threatened With Eviction in Botched NYCHA Paperwork ‘Crisis’

Tue, 30 Jun 2026 15:04:47 GMT

Surge in Section 8 Terminations

The New York City Housing Authority mistakenly informed private management companies of public housing that hundreds of tenants had been cut off from federal rent subsidies, triggering eviction notices and frightening residents who insist they’ve paid their rent on time without fail.

The erroneous cutoffs occurred at multiple NYCHA developments run by private firms the housing authority relies on to manage properties under a controversial program called Permanent Affordability Commitment Together, or PACT .

The problem appears to be a paperwork screwup, with NYCHA informing tenants their Section 8 rent subsidies were going to be terminated because the housing authority believed they had failed to recertify their income and household makeup, as required each year.

The number of Section 8 terminations over recertification jumped nearly 2,000% in the space of a single year, according to data from the Legal Aid Society.

But tenants say they’ve filed everything as required, and on Friday NYCHA officials admitted that a huge backlog in processing recertifications resulted in wrongful Section 8 terminations. In response, the building management companies began billing tenants for the full, unsubsidized rent.

“NYCHA has met with legal and advocacy groups to discuss a scanning backlog issue the Authority experienced which resulted in erroneous termination warning letters being sent to some households,” spokesman Andrew Sklar told The City Reporter. “This scanning backlog has since been resolved and we are committed to improving our systems and processes as well as our communication with residents regarding their legal obligations.”

The scope of the issue is not completely clear, but the nonprofit New York Legal Assistance Group says they experienced a significant uptick in calls from voucher holders and community partners who were distressed because they received termination notices related to recertification issues. This issue was elevated to NYCHA to address.

A public records request by the Legal Aid Society revealed the number of Section 8 terminations due to failure to recertify jumped from 42 in 2024 to 836 last year.

On Sunday, the housing advocacy group Metro Industrial Areas Foundation held a rally in East New York on the issue, singling out three developments there — the Linden, Boulevard and Penn-Wortman Houses — where they say hundreds of families who thought they were following the rules are now fighting to keep their apartments.

‘Crisis’ For Families'

Yolanda Moore, a tenant in the Boulevard Houses and a leader of East Brooklyn Congregations/Metro IAF, said both NYCHA and the private building managers share blame for the quagmire, charging that NYCHA loses recertification paperwork while building managers “have been unable to navigate the Section 8 recertification system sufficiently.”

“We are seeing a recertification crisis in PACT,” Moore said. “We were promised PACT would make our homes stable and decent. Yet Linden, Boulevard and Penn-Wortman alone have hundreds of people in housing court for non-payment — and we know many of them paid their rent. We also know this is happening in many developments citywide.” Housing court records show that Stanley Avenue Preservation LLC, the entity managing Penn-Wortman and Linden, has filed more than 900 eviction proceedings against tenants there since 2023, almost exclusively for non-payment. The New York Legal Assistance Group said it’s not clear how many are related to the Section 8 cutoffs.

NYLAG associate director Anna Luft said no one — neither the housing authority nor the PACT building managers — seemed to know precisely what was causing the problem: “There’s confusion with tenants. There’s confusion with building managers in the management office. They don’t seem to ever have a clear answer on what to do and when to do it. Because the way it’s been implemented, there’s been no clear structure.”

Seeking Mamdani’s ‘Heavy Hand’

She said tenants are now looking for help from Mayor Zohran Mamdani — who has promised increased attention to NYCHA’s struggles — to create a system that actually functions.

“It will take a very heavy hand from the mayor’s office to structure this,” Luft said, “because up until now, NYCHA has not demonstrated any willingness to foster the structure for this program to run smoothly.”

Under PACT, the housing authority retains ownership of properties but turns over management to private sector firms. Tenants in PACT developers are still required to pay rent, but their share is capped at no more than 30% of their income. The rest is subsidized by Section 8 housing vouchers.

To retain this subsidy, all households must file annual paperwork re-certifying their incomes and household makeup. Tenants say they have filed the required documents — only for the housing authority to terminate their subsidies for not recertifying.

Without the Section 8 subsidy, PACT building managers then began charging their full, unsubsidized, rent amount, while tenants continued to pay at the subsidized rate, leading to massive arrears and eviction proceedings.

NYCHA claimed one tenant — who insists they filed all the required documents — owed a stunning $80,000 in back rent.

“I’m talking about people who do everything they’re supposed to do and there’s still a delay” addressing the paperwork problem, Luft said. “It could be paperwork that was lost by NYCHA or the (private sector manager) and during that time, they’re being charged unaffordable rent.”

Luft’s organization has seen this issue surface “in multiple developments across the city,” she said.

Housing authority officials said the erroneous subsidy terminations only occurred with tenants who submitted their paperwork via the mail or through walk-in centers — which, more often than not, is the favored method of seniors living in public housing.

Massive Arrears

At the Linden Houses in East New York, tenant leaders and longtime residents Stanley and Leslie Fields say they struggled for months to straighten things out after they started getting billed for market rate rent. Leslie Fields, 69, told The City Reporter that every time she filed the paperwork for recertification, she would get a message that she still needed to recertify.

“I was running back and forth, doing everything I could to comply,” she said. “At the same time it was really raising my blood pressure because I just wanted to get it done and finished.”

In one visit to NYCHA’s office to deliver her paperwork, she said the staffer couldn’t figure out how to use the on-line portal to register the information. During another visit, the NYCHA management employee said “he couldn’t understand why my rent was going up and my subsidy was going down. It was ridiculous.”

Before the matter was resolved, the Fieldses were paying a higher than normal rent. They are hoping to obtain a credit toward future payments.

A 63-year-old who lives with her son in a two bedroom apartment in the Penn-Wortman development in East New York, who spoke on the condition that she remain anonymous because she doesn’t want to alienate NYCHA, said she’s been struggling to straighten out her situation for nearly a year.

At her development’s management office, “The lady told me I had to go back to downtown NYCHA and she gave me questions to ask them about why they’re billing for market rate rent,” she said. “I shouldn’t have to pay that, because I did what I was supposed to do.”

As of last month, this resident was told she had $45,600 in alleged arrears.

Spokespersons for Boulevard Together, the management firm at the Boulevard Houses, and C+C, the manager at Penn-Wortman and Linden, declined to comment and referred questions to NYCHA.

Though multiple tenants continue to be told they are tens of thousands of dollars in arrears, housing authority spokesman Sklar said that once advocacy groups and lawyers confronted NYCHA with the problem, the recertifications were processed and the erroneous termination letters nixed.

The erroneous arrears will ultimately be erased from the records, he said.

According to the New York City Housing Authority, recertifications can be completed and submitted online through NYCHA’s Self-Service Portal (selfserve.nycha.info) — accessible via computer, smartphone, or tablet. Paper copies of the interim/annual recertification can also be requested by contacting the Customer Contact Center at 718-707-7771.

Aqueduct’s Big History and Big Future: Plans for Housing

Sun, 28 Jun 2026 13:30:51 GMT

In 2009, we wrote : “The season ends today at Aqueduct, and with the finish of the ninth race should come the closure of the Queens horse track.” It’s taken 17 years, but the ninth race at Aqueduct yesterday had a post time of 5:44 p.m. and was won by Assume Nothing running the mile and an eighth in 1:51.21. It wasn’t just the final race of the day or the season; it was the last race ever, after 132 years.

Aqueduct has now closed . The horses will henceforth have their winter meets at Belmont and the huge plot of public land in South Ozone Park will have a new use and the top priority must be housing, housing, housing.

Once, decades ago, before the New York Lottery and before Off-Track Betting, Aqueduct could bring in more than 70,000 folks. That’s when the numbers racket and illegal policy games used the last three digits of the Aqueduct attendance as printed in the Daily News as the draw. Legend has it that when an unsuspecting new man on the paper’s composing desk left out the agate type one day there were lots of problems for bettors and bookies across the city.

Speaking of attendance, yesterday, there were fewer than 7,000 fans for the special farewell, with people waiting in line to get in before the doors opened at 11 a.m., which is vastly more than a typical day. On Friday, the doors opened with just a few stranglers on hand.

The property totals 210 acres and Gov. Hochul has said that 100 acres of state land is up for new uses . There are also 26 acres owned by New York City. Sitting right on the A-train, next to Kennedy Airport and highways, meeting the housing needs of New York has to be the goal.

In another part of Queens, the Creedmoor psychiatric campus will see 2,000 new housing units on about 50 acres . But Creedmoor is a transit desert. The Big A is blessed with a fast train into Brooklyn and Manhattan. There used to even be an Aqueduct special on the subway that ran on the IND from 42nd and Eight Ave. to Aqueduct, only stopping at Hoyt–Schermerhorn. The MTA ran a final commemorative Aqueduct special on Friday from Hoyt and it took just 25 minutes.

Hochul is focusing on 100 acres, which is twice as large as Creedmoor, and the full Aqueduct tract is more than 200 acres. And with such excellent transit, there can be much greater housing density. Think 5,000 new housing units, think 10,000 new units. New York desperately needs housing and Aqueduct must be a major part of the answer.

The land at Aqueduct is ready to go, no need for demolition, no need to remove and remediate dangerous industrial waste like other sites have.

There’s a lot of racing history at the Big A, which began in 1894, before Queens was even part of New York City. The greats have run there from Man o’ War to Seabiscuit to the greatest of them all, Secretariat. Big Red actually lost the 1973 Wood Memorial at Aqueduct right before taking the Triple Crown. That November, when Secretariat retired, he was at Aqueduct for a final slow ride by Ron Turcotte.

It was at Aqueduct on June 10, 1944, four days after D-Day, during the Carter Handicap, when there was the first ever triple dead heat between Brownie, Bossuet, and Wait A Bit . And the Belmont Stakes was run at Aqueduct for five years in the 1960s, with possible Triple Crowns being spoiled in 1964 and 1966.

The summer meet at Saratoga starts on Friday and racing continues year round with a newly winterized grandstand at Belmont, but no longer at the Big A. The apron and paddock will now be quiet. The past is done and the future must be housing.

NYC Launches New Affordable Housing Program Under Mamdani

Thu, 26 Mar 2026 18:13:12 GMT

NEW YORK – Today, Mayor Zohran Kwame Mamdani, Deputy Mayor Leila Bozorg and Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) Commissioner Dina Levy announced the new Neighborhood Builders Fast Track, an expedited process to speed the delivery of affordable housing on City-owned land. With Neighborhood Builders, HPD will pre-qualify affordable housing builders and shorten the pre-development Request for Proposals (RFP) process by eight months for certain projects – cutting the time to select an affordable housing developer by nearly half. Together with the new Expedited Land Use Review Procedure (ELURP), which the Mamdani administration has moved quickly to implement following its approval by voters in November, these programs will cut the pre-development process by more than two years.

“Our city is facing a historic housing crisis -- the last thing we need to do is tie ourselves in red tape,” said Mayor Mamdani. “The Neighborhood Builders Fast Track will speed up housing development and make it faster to build on city-owned land. This administration is willing to move at the speed of need to make this a city New Yorkers can continue to call home.”

“New Yorkers deserve a government that doesn’t just deliver high-quality, affordable housing – but that also delivers it efficiently and effectively. I am proud to launch the Neighborhood Builders Fast Track alongside the HPD team who are working to deliver affordable housing across the five boroughs,” said Leila Bozorg, Deputy Mayor for Housing and Planning. “I’m also excited to be advancing affordable housing projects at 784 Myrtle Ave, 1337 Jerome Ave, and 109-43 Farmers Blvd that will help create more vibrant, affordable neighborhoods, including new homeownership opportunities.”

"New York City needs more affordable housing, built faster and at lower cost — and HPD is not waiting to deliver it," said Dina Levy, Housing and Preservation Commissioner. "The Neighborhood Builders Fast Track will reduce costs, speed up timelines, and maximize affordability. Public land is a public good — and we will not let city-owned sites sit idle while New Yorkers struggle to find an affordable home."

HPD is releasing a Request for Qualifications (RFQ) due May 8th for affordable housing developers who will pre-qualify for the Neighborhood Builders program, with a focus on nonprofit organizations and minority- and women-owned businesses. Once development teams have been qualified, the faster Neighborhood Builders process will be used at sites such as 784-800 Myrtle Avenue in Brooklyn, 1337 Jerome Avenue in the Bronx and 109-43 Farmers Boulevard in Queens, which will together deliver as many as 300 new affordable homes, including around 100 affordable homeownership opportunities at the Bronx and Queens sites. HPD expects to use the Neighborhood Builders Fast Track to advance development of as many as 1,000 new homes over the next two years.

The Neighborhood Builders Fast Track advances the Mamdani administration’s critical goals of creating affordable housing, especially on City-owned land, and speeding up the delivery of housing across the city. On the first day of the administration, Mayor Mamdani signed Executive Orders 4 and 5, establishing the Land Inventory Fast Track (LIFT) and Streamlining Procedures to Expedite Equitable Development (SPEED) task forces, both of which will deliver recommendations this spring. The LIFT Task Force is working to identify opportunities for housing on City-owned sites, and the SPEED Task Force is working to reform the affordable housing production process, including pre- and post-construction approvals, project financing, and lease-up.

“I look forward to working with Mayor Mamdani on the Neighborhood Builders program to deliver urgently needed affordable housing,” said Council Member Chi Ossé. “Since taking office, I have made one priority clear: build more housing and keep our neighbors here. The inclusion of 784-800 Myrtle Avenue in our district is both an honor and a recognition of Bed-Stuy’s need for deeply affordable homes so longtime residents and low-income New Yorkers can continue to contribute to our shared Brooklyn heritage. I’m proud to have approved thousands of units — spanning deeply affordable, middle-income, and supportive housing — that meet the diverse needs of my constituents. With Neighborhood Builders accelerating this work, we can move faster to confront rising rents and prevent displacement, because the people who give this city its life deserve to remain part of its future.”

“With the highest loss of black residents in the city, Mayor Mamdani picked the perfect place to start - Bed Stuy. Transforming vacant city-owned land to 100% affordable housing. This is what we have been calling for. This is hope. This is a downpayment of what is to come - building thousands of affordable homes in Bed Stuy and Central Brooklyn so the people who live here can stay here. Moving from words to action,” said Rev. Dr. Adolphus Lacey, Pastor of Bethany Baptist Church in Bedford Stuyvesant and Co-Chair of East Brooklyn Congregations (EBC).

“Today, Mayor Mamdani is showing us what is possible. Metro IAF called on the Mayor to do what others thought was impossible - develop 50,000 affordable units each year. We said it takes three things - sites, staff, and subsidy. Metro IAF showed him the sites. His staff quickly and thoroughly reviewed the sites. And today, the Mayor is acting to make city-owned land live again,” said Rev. Dr. David K. Brawley, Pastor of St. Paul Community Baptist Church in East New York and Co-Chair of Metro IAF. “We are in a 9-1-1 moment. Mayor Mamdani is showing what leaders do in an emergency. They act. They streamline. They expedite. They cut the red tape. We can’t wait to come back here and welcome the families who will have a brand-new home. We will do it again and again. We are not stopping. Metro IAF will stand with Mayor Mamdani and we will fight. We will fight for affordability. We will fight for maximizing density. We will fight for expediting. We will fight for all New Yorkers to keep New York home.”

“With a 1.4% vacancy rate, New Yorkers need more affordable housing, and fast,” said Annemarie Gray, Executive Director of Open New York. “We need to use every tool to speed up the creation of new homes, and the Neighborhood Builders Fast Track is a powerful new one. By cutting 8 months of process, affordable housing will get built faster, enabling more New Yorkers to access homes they can afford. We're excited to see the Mamdani Administration, Deputy Mayor Bozorg, and Commissioner Levy prioritize the fast delivery of more affordable housing."

"New York's housing crisis isn't years away - it's happening right now. For this reason, government must explore every tool at its disposal to cut the time it takes to build affordable homes. The Neighborhood Builders Fast Track is an initiative that prioritizes organizations that understand our communities and looks to accelerate livability for families," said Carlina Rivera, President and CEO of NYSAFAH. "We applaud Mayor Mamdani and his team for their creativity in finding new pathways to house New Yorkers more quickly and affordably."

“As a third-generation MBE developer and general contractor, Apex Building Group is pleased to see this new Neighborhood Builders initiative that will help broaden the circle of participants in the development of urgently needed affordable units. Speeding up the process of getting from the initial idea to shovel in the ground is essential if we are going to meet the housing demand,” said Lee A. Brathwaite, CEO of Apex Building Group.

“Constructive Partnerships Unlimited is proud to partner with New York City on permanent housing opportunities for underserved New Yorkers and utilize initiatives like Neighborhood Builders Fast Track to lower costs and expedite construction. Building affordable homes is a vital cause that impacts dignity, stability, and opportunity, and we look forward to advancing additional projects so more New Yorkers can find a place to call home and build a meaningful future," said Joseph M. Pancari, President and CEO of Constructive Partnerships Unlimited.

"Comunilifeis committed to expanding affordable and supportive housing, we welcome the Neighborhood Builders Fast Track as a critical step toward an equitable development process. Prioritizing nonprofits and M/WBE developers strengthens local capacity and ensures that the communities most affected by the housing crisis are part of the solution," said Blanca Ramirez, President and CEO of Comunilife.

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Affordable housing, sanitation and transportation on the minds of East New York voters

Thu, 16 Oct 2025 15:23:08 GMT

In East New York, Brooklyn, signs of pride and progress are unmistakable.

Rev. David Brawley of St. Paul Community Baptist Church believes the neighborhood has been able to turn around because “leaders, citizens, have imagination and are willing to do the work.

Once known as the murder capital of New York City, the 75th police precinct had 126 murders in 1993. Last year, there were 12.

For many residents, signs of economic development have brought new optimism. Now they hope the neighborhood’s comeback will continue under the next mayor.

“As a pastor here in the East New York section of Brooklyn, every week it feels like I’ve got to say goodbye to members that I love because they can’t afford to live here,” Brawley told NY1.

When he’s not in the pulpit, Brawley is focused on his other calling, building affordable housing in East New York. For 40 years, St. Paul has worked with East Brooklyn Congregations to transform parts of the community like Spring Creek.

“This was a former landfill,” Brawley said. “Our leaders and our people saw more than garbage. We saw an opportunity to build affordable housing for the city of New York. There are 2,600 units here in this area.”

Brawley hopes the next administration in City Hall comes in with a bold vision to build new homes that doesn’t leave longtime East New York residents priced out.

“I would say to the next mayor that this is an urgent existential crisis that demands an urgent response,” he said.

Along the New Lots Avenue corridor, residents Erica Townsend and Eleanor Pinckney shared their concerns about sanitation.

“People are dumping,” Townsend said.

“If you look down the street, you’ll see it’s bundles of garbage all along here, why?” Pinckney added.

City Councilmember Chris Banks believes it’s important to continue “the upward trend in addressing quality-of-life issues.”

Banks believes the next administration in City Hall should be attentive to the needs of NYCHA residents and public transportation in East New York.

Build a better Jamaica that works for everyone

Fri, 05 Sep 2025 10:00:59 GMT

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A little perspective on housing for Mayor Adams

Tue, 06 Dec 2022 10:00:59 GMT

Every mayor tries to make his own mark on New York — in part by showing how he differs from his immediate predecessor, in part by choosing themes and programs that he can call his own. We have seen this pattern play out since the first term of the first “Mayor Swagger,” Ed Koch. As leaders who have created our own initiatives and developed our own programs, we’ve learned to operate with a combination of thick skin, a sense of humor, and a willingness to confront every mayor when they either ignore the successes of others or make claims that simply don’t reflect reality.

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The people of Queens need more power

Thu, 19 Nov 2020 10:00:59 GMT

Thursday night at 7 p.m., we will gather virtually with over 1,000 leaders from 42 congregations, unions, schools and non-profits virtually to launch a new citizens organization: Queens Power. Our mission is to organize Queens residents to build the leverage needed to fight for and win justice for themselves and the communities they live in.

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Black and Latino Churches Offer Prayer, Hope and Coronavirus Testing

Fri, 10 Jul 2020 17:47:55 GMT

Testing brought together old friends after months of isolation, so there were a lot of socially distanced hugs. “My church friends are like my extended family. It was a happy moment,” said Renay Foster, 46, who went to Bethany Baptist Church in Brooklyn with her mother and daughters to get tested for antibodies.

Ms. Foster’s family had been hit hard by the coronavirus. She was laid off from her job on March 17; her 26-year-old daughter, Jazmine, got a pink slip the same day. A younger daughter, Jourdan, is a senior in high school, and the family’s sudden loss of income put her college plans in jeopardy.

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A Pastor in Queens Has But Two Pandemic Prayers, Presbyterian Mission

Wed, 20 May 2020 18:37:03 GMT

Church leaders did that by working in partnership with the Metro Industrial Areas Foundation and the Community Healthcare Network, a federally qualified health center in the city, for Medicare and Medicaid services.

“We wanted to use the site as model for Gov. Andrew Cuomo, so that he knew that religious institution sites could be used to positively impact communities of color,” O’Connor said, “and that we have long roots and trusted relationship in the communities we serve.”

Since opening a month ago, the church site has tested more than 2,000 people in a community that has a high number of COVID-19 cases and deaths. Black and Latino people in the city are twice as likely to die from coronavirus than whites — and 75 percent of those doing frontline work during the pandemic are people of color.

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